"I wonder how things are back home?" said Angalo, after a while.

"All right, I expect," said Masklin.

"Do you really?"

"Well, more hope than expect, to tell the truth."

"I expect your Grimma's got everyone organized," said Angalo, trying to grin.

"She's not my Grimma," snapped Masklin.

"Isn't she? Whose is she, then?"

"She's ..." Masklin hesitated. "Hers, I suppose," he said lamely.

"Oh. I thought the two of you were set to-" Angalo began.

"We're not. I told her we were going to get married, and all she could talk about was frogs," said Masklin.

"That's females for you," said Gurder. "Didn't I say that letting them learn to read was a bad idea? It overheats their brains."

"She said the most important thing in the world was little frogs living in a flower," Masklin went on, trying to listen to the voice of his ownmemory. He hadn't been listening very hard at the time. He'd been tooangry.

"Sounds like you could boil a kettle on her head," said Angalo.

"It was something she'd read in a book, she said."

"My point exactly," said Gurder. "You know I never really agreed with letting everyone learn to read. It unsettles people."

Masklin looked gloomily at the rain.

"Come to think of it," he said, "It wasn't frogs exactly. It was the idea of frogs. She said there are these hills where it's hot and rains all thetime, and in the rain forests there are these very tall trees and rightin the top branches of the trees there are these like great big flowerscalled ... bromeliads, I think, and water gets into the flowers andmakes little pools and there's a type of frog that lays eggs in the poolsand tadpoles hatch and grow into new frogs and these little frogs livetheir whole lives in the flowers right at the top of the trees and don'teven know about the ground, and once you know the world is full of thingslike that, your life is never the same."

He took a deep breath.

"Something like that, anyway," he said.

Gurder looked at Angalo.

"Didn't understand any of it," he said.

"It's a metaphor," said the Thing. No one paid it any attention.

Masklin scratched his ear. "It seemed to mean a lot to her," he said.

"It's a metaphor," said the Thing.

"Women always want something," said Angalo. "My wife is always on about dresses."

"I'm sure he would have helped," said Gurder. "If we'd talked to him.

He'd probably have given us a proper meal and, and-"

"Given us a home in a shoebox," said Masklin.

"And given us a home in a shoebox," said Gurder automatically. "No! I mean, maybe. I mean, why not? A decent hour's sleep for a change. And then we-"

"We'd be carried around in his pocket," said Masklin.

"Not necessarily. Not necessarily."

"We would. Because he's big and we're small."

"Launch in three hours and fifty-seven minutes," said the Thing.

Their temporary camp overlooked a ditch. There didn't seem to be any winter in Florida, and the banks were thick with greenery.

Something like a flat plate with a spoon on the front sculled slowly past. The spoon stuck out of the water for a moment, looked at the nomes vaguely, and then dropped down again.

"What was that thing, Thing?" said Masklin.

The Thing extended one of its sensors.

"A long-necked turtle."

"Oh."

The turtle swam peacefully away.

"Lucky, really," said Gurder.

"What?" said Angalo.

"Its having a long neck like that and being called a Long-Necked Turtle.

It'd be really awkward having a name like that if it had a short neck."

"Launch in three hours and fifty-six minutes.'"

Masklin stood up.

"You know," said Angalo, "I really wish I could have read more of The Spy with No Trousers. It was getting exciting."

"Come on," he said. "Let's see if we can find a way."

Angalo, who had been sitting with his chin in his hands, gave him an odd look.

"What now?"

"We've come too far just to stop, haven't we?"

They pushed their way through the weeds. After a while a fallen log helped them across the ditch.

"Much greener here than at home, isn't it?" said Angalo.

Masklin pushed through a thick stand of leaves.

"Warmer too," said Gurder. "They've got the heating fixed here*."

[* For generations the Store nomes had known that temperature was caused by air conditioning and the heating system;]

like many of them, Gurder never quite gave up certain habits of thinking.

"No one fixes heating Outside, it just happens," said Angalo.

"If I get old, this is the kind of place I'd like to live, if I had to live Outside," Gurder went on, ignoring him.

"It's a wildlife preserve," said the Thing.

Gurder looked shocked. "What? Like jam? Made of animals'?"

"No. It is a place where animals can live unmolested."

"You're not allowed to hunt them, you mean?"

"Yes."

"You're not allowed to hunt anything, Masklin," said Gurder.

Masklin grunted.

There was something nagging at him. He couldn't quite put his finger on it. Probably it was to do with the animals after all.

"Apart from turtles with long necks," he said, "what other animals are there here, Thing?"

The Thing didn't answer for a moment. Then it said, "I find mention of sea cows and alligators."

Masklin tried to imagine what a sea cow looked like. But they didn't sound too bad. He'd met cows before. They were big and slow and didn't eat nomes, except by accident.

"What's an alligator?" he said.

The Thing told him.

"What?" said Masklin.

"What?" said Angalo.

"What?" said Gurder. He pulled his robe tightly around his legs.

"You idiot!" shouted Angalo.

"Me?" said Masklin hotly. "How should I know? How should I know? Is it my fault? Did I miss a sign at the airport saying 'Welcome to Floridia, home of large meat-eating reptiles up to twelve feet long'?"

They watched the grasses. A damp warm world inhabited by insects and turtles was suddenly a disguise for horrible terrors with huge teeth.

Something's watching us, Masklin thought. I can feel it.

The three nomes stood back-to-back. Masklin crouched down, slowly, and picked up a stone.

The grass moved.

"The Thing did say they don't all grow to twelve feet," said Angalo, in the silence.

"We were blundering around in the darkness!" said Gurder. "With things like that around!"

The grass moved again. It wasn't the wind that was moving it.

"Pull yourself together," muttered Angalo.

"If it is alligators," said Gurder, trying to look noble, "I shall show them how a nome can die with dignity."

"Please yourself," said Angalo, his eyes scanning the undergrowth. "I'm planning to show them how a nome can run away with speed."

The grasses parted.

A nome stepped out.

There was a crackle behind Masklin. His head spun around. Another nome stepped out.

And another.

And another.

Fifteen of them.

The three travelers swiveled like an animal with six legs and three heads.

It was the fire that I saw, Masklin told himself. We sat right down by the ashes of a fire, and I looked at them, and I didn't wonder who could have made them.

The strangers wore gray. They seemed to be all sizes. And every single one of them had a spear.

I wish I had mine, Masklin thought, trying to keep as many of the strangers as possible in his line of sight.

They weren't pointing their spears at him. The trouble was, they weren't exactly not pointing them, either.

Masklin told himself that it was very rare for a nome to kill another nome. In the Store it was considered bad manners, while Outside ...

well, there were so many other things that killed nomes in any case.

Besides, it was wrong. There didn't have to be any other reasons.